Showing posts with label colavito. Show all posts
Showing posts with label colavito. Show all posts

04 January 2015

sunday morning target dodgers - gonna fly now

well, i dug out a few more sheets from the 1990 target 100th anniversary giveaway set to scan and show off.  as for the subtitle of the post - you can probably guess that there is a rocky (or two) coming up.  with that, here are 14 more members of the dodger franchise fraternity from one of those sheets - the 15th guy being a double dipper who will get a post all to himself later today.

rube bressler
bressler began his career as a pitcher for the 1914 athletics, and converted to the outfield while with the reds later that decade.  by 1921, he had given up the mound for good.  bressler joined the robins in 1928 and patrolled the outfield as their left fielder for four seasons, during which time he hit .302 in 457 games.

jim brewer
that's a nice shot of brewer in dodger stadium, with the 'three sisters' palm trees in the background.  brewer was one of the best relievers in dodger history, with 125 saves over 12 seasons with the club, starting in 1964.  he pitched in three world series for the dodgers, and was an all-star in 1973.

rocky colavito
here's the first rocky on the sheet.  a former american league home run champ, colavito played for the dodgers in 1968 for just over 2 months.  during that time, he hit .204 with 3 homers and 11 rbi. after playing in just 40 games for them, the dodgers released colavito and he finished out his career with the yankees.

bill crouch
crouch was 4-0 in his rookie season with the 1939 dodgers. he pitched in 6 games, starting 3 and completing each of them.  had his career ended there, i would bet that he and his father, also bill crouch, would have been the only father/son big leaguers to throw complete games in each of their major league starts (dad had one start and one complete game in 1910 for the browns).  alas, the dodgers traded crouch to the phillies where he made 5 starts in 1941 and completed only one.

tom daly
daly joined the bridegrooms after three seasons in the national league just as the brooklyn franchise joined the senior circuit in 1890.  he remained with the club for 12 years, although he missed the 1897 season.  daly was the team's primary second baseman for much of that time, playing in a total of 1096 games and batting .294 for brooklyn.

cecil espy
espy was the white sox' first round draft pick in 1980. i remember this because the la times made a big deal about the 1980 draft due to crenshaw high's darryl strawberry being picked first overall.  in reviewing the draft results, i noticed that espy was taken with the pick immediately prior to the dodgers' selection of ross jones (kelly gruber was the player taken right after the dodgers selected jones).  espy never played for the chisox, however, as he was dealt to the dodgers prior to the 1983 season for rudy law.  espy debuted in the big leagues during the '83 campaign as a september call-up.  he saw action in 20 games as a pinch-hitter, pinch-runner, and late inning defensive replacement, although he did start one game near the end of the season.  espy was back in the minors for the 1984 and 1985 seasons, and was then traded to the pirates in the bill madlock deal late in '85.  he didn't return to the majors, however, until he was with the rangers in 1987.  maybe that's when the picture used on his card was taken.

enzo hernandez
i've written about enzo before, and there's not much else to say since he only appeared in four games as a dodger in 1978. i'll just note that he was one of three dodgers to wear number 3 in 1978 - glenn burke and rudy law being the others.

dave j. hickman
dave here went by jim, as his middle name was james.  i am guessing that target used the dave to distinguish this guy from the other jim hickman who played for the dodgers.  you can tell that this one was a member of the 1916 robins thanks to the uniform he is wearing, and in fact, hickman was a robin from 1916 through 1919.  he hit .218 during that time while playing a fair amount of outfield, but he did not appear in the 1916 world series against the red sox.

joe oeschger
oeschger finished his 12 year major league career with a stint with the 1925 robins.  he pitched in 21 games, and had a record of 1-2 with a 6.08 era.  his name was already familiar to brooklyn fans, as oeschger was the pitcher for the braves who threw 26 innings against the robins on may 1, 1920 - a feat  also achieved by the robins' pitcher that day, leon cadore.  oeschger took his place next to cadore on a card commemorating the feat in the 1961 topps set.

charlie perkins
perkins was 0-3 with an 8.51 era for the 1934 dodgers. he pitched in 11 games, 2 of which were starts.  he had previously pitched in the majors for the 1930 athletics who won the world series, although perkins did not appear in the fall classic.

ken rowe
rowe was one of two rowes (don was the other - no relation) to appear on a 1963 topps rookie parade card.  he pitched in 14 games for the dodgers that year, putting up an era of 2.53 while splitting his two decisions.  rowe did not appear for the dodgers in the 1963 world series, and his contract was purchased by the orioles in 1964 bringing his dodger career to an end.

preston ward
ward was the dodgers' first baseman on opening day in 1948.  jackie robinson had moved to second base, opening the door for ward, a 20-year old rookie.  after a decent start (he was hitting right around .300 at the end of may), ward struggled in june and his average fell to .260 toward the end of the month.  he was sent down and gil hodges took over at first, and the rest is history.  after some more time in the minors, ward was picked up by the cubs, and he wound up playing in the majors for several years with the cubs, pirates, indians, and a's.

brad wellman
wellman spent the first five years of his big league career (1982-1986) with the giants, but signed with the dodgers as a free agent prior to the 1987 season. he managed to make it into three games as a dodger that year, appearing once as a second baseman, once as a shortstop, and once as a third baseman.  overall, he was 1 for 4 with an rbi as a dodger, and he signed with the royals after the season's end.

lave winham
winham pitched in one game for his hometown brooklyn superbas in 1902.  he lasted 3 innings, facing 15 batters and allowing 2 (unearned) runs.  the next year, he was pitching for the pirates in what would be his second and final big league season.  you don't see too many fedoras on baseball cards.

i will be back next week with another installment of these things, so don't fret.

25 August 2011

3 of nine

a couple of weeks ago, i was informed by my page-a-day calendar that there have been 9 major league players whose last names begin with the letter 'c' that have also hit 300 home runs.  three of them played for the dodgers during their careers.  a fourth, jose canseco, made a stop at dodger spring training one year during what turned out to be a glorified book tour.

the legit 300-hr dodgers from this list are:

ron cey
of course.  the penguin hit 316 home runs during his career, 228 of which came with the dodgers.  he is currently second on the la dodger all-time home run list behind eric karros.

next, the kid.
gary carter hit 324 homers in his career, 6 of which came with the dodgers in 1991.  his 324 total is the same as lance parrish's career tally.  parrish hit one more as a catcher (299 to carter's 298) according to my quick googling.  should lance parrish (whose 'most similar' player on his baseball reference page happens to be hall-of-famer gary carter) have received more hof consideration?

the third membef of this group is rocky colavito
colavito had finished the 1967 season with the white sox and was then purchased by the dodgers towards the end of spring training in 1968.  during his time in la, he hit 3 of his 374 career home runs before being released by the blue in july.  all three were hit in chicago, and came over a two day span in may.  he hit two home runs on may 7th off of joe niekro and then former dodger phil regan. the next day, he hit a bomb off of jack lamabe.  and that was the extent of his national league home run hitting.

those weren't the last home runs he would hit, however as the yankees got five long balls after they signed colavito for the remainder of the season, his last in the big leagues.

because colavito joined the dodgers so late in the spring, topps wasn't able to switch his team affiliation.  it's a shame that he doesn't have a regular card as a dodger (and his 1990 target card shows him in an indian uniform) so i went ahead and slightly tweaked his 1968 card into what should have been
it still seems weird.  just for the record, here's the full list of 'c' 300 hundred home run hitters:

jose canseco - 462
joe carter - 396
orlando cepeda - 379
norm cash - 377
rocky colavito - 374
jack clark - 340
gary carter - 324
vinny castilla - 320
ron cey - 316

mike cameron needs another 25 so the next guy to join the list is likely miguel cabrera who needs 30.